PSYC 305A:

Personality Psychology
Week 13: Applications of Personality II
Friedrich M. Götz, Ph.D.
Yilin Guo
Gordon Heltzel
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia
Welcome Back & Land
Acknowledgement
 Brief
Survey

Please write
down your
chosen
response
number for
each of the 3
10 items
 Today’s Learning Goals
• (1) Discuss the personality predictors of relationship
success.
• (2) Discuss the personality predictors of relationship
failure.
• (3) Evaluate evidence for personality-based romantic
preferences.
• (4) Consider the centrality of relationship-specific
variables for the explanation of relationship success. 4
Personality & Relationship Success

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 Dealmakers (Back et al., 2023; Funder, 2019)

• Communal traits (e.g., warmth, trustworthiness)

• Emotional stability
• Self-control
…are associated with greater relationship satisfaction and
decreased relationship conflict, especially in close relationships, as
both:
• Actor effects (i.e., if I score high on these traits, it will benefit my
relationship satisfaction)
• Partner effects (i.e., if my partners scores high on these traits, it will
benefit my relationship satisfaction) 6
 The Big Five & Friendship Outcomes
(Antonoplis & John, 2023; Beck & Jackson, 2022; Harris & Vazire, 2016; Soto, 2019, 2021)
• Openness: More diverse friends; less conflict and more productive
conflict style
• Conscientiousness: More forgiving; more productive conflict style
• Extraversion: Higher peer status; more friends; more productive
conflict style
• Agreeableness: More often befriended; more productive conflict
style; higher relationship quality
• Neuroticism: Lower peer status; more conflict and more
problematic conflict style; lower relationship quality
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 The Big Five & Romantic Outcomes
(Beck & Jackson, 2022; Harris & Vazire, 2016; Soto, 2019, 2021)
• Openness: –
• Conscientiousness: More likely to have kids; more likely to get
married; Surprise: also more likely to get divorced
• Extraversion: Higher dating variety; more likely to move in with
partner; more likely to get married; more likely to have kids; greater
perceived attractiveness; more romantic satisfaction
• Agreeableness: Higher relationship quality; more likely to get
married; Surprise: also more likely to get divorced
• Neuroticism: Lower romantic satisfaction; greater romantic abuse;
more likely to break up; lower relationship quality 8
 The Big Five & Other Social Outcomes
(Beck & Jackson, 2022; Harris & Vazire, 2016; Soto, 2019, 2021)
• Openness: Larger social networks
• Conscientiousness: –
• Extraversion: Better social skills; more comfortable with strangers;
larger social networks; more volunteering
• Agreeableness: Better social skills; higher likeability; more
volunteering; less likely to commit crimes
• Neuroticism: More antisocial behaviour; higher mistrust

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Personality & Relationship Struggles

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 Deal Breakers
• Aspects of personality that prevent or undermine
relationships
• Introversion, disagreeableness
• Untrustworthiness, anger issues
• Rejection sensitivity
• Dispositional contempt

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 Dispositional Contempt (Schriber et al., 2017)

• Go back to the scores you wrote down for the 10-item

questionnaire we started the class with.
• Scoring:
(1) Add up your scores on items 1,2,3,6,8,9,10.
(2) “Reverse score” items 4,5, and 7; for these items convert 1=5, 2=4,
3=3, 4=2 and 5=1.
(3) Add the total of the reversed scores to the total for the other items.
(4) Divide the total number by 10 to calculate your average.

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Contempt & Relationships

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What Are YOU Looking For?

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 Personality-Based Preferences
• Cross-cultural study in Turkey, Pakistan, and Iran (Atari et al., 2019)
• Agreeable individuals prefer kind and dependable partners (all 3
countries)
• Open individuals prefer less religious partners (Iran, Turkey; not
Pakistan)

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 Personality-Based Preferences
• Large-scale study with over 500,000 users
and 421 potential matches on Hinge (Levy et
al., 2019)

• Convergence in personality traits (i.e.,

extraversion), personal choices (e.g.,
desired relationship styles), physical traits
(e.g., height) and shared experiences all
predicted greater likelihood for attraction
and opting to go on real-world dates
• Exception: introverts rarely had an effective
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match with other introverts
Personality Similarity & Relationships
• The evidence is not yet very strong, but suggestive of small effects in
favour of personality similarity
• Meta-analysis indicates similarity-attraction effect (Montoya & Horton, 2012)
• People with more similar personality traits are more likely to be
romantically attracted to each other
• Greater personality similarity in relationships associated with more
positive and less negative well-being (Chopik & Lucas, 2019)

• Support for personality similarity in real, established relationships

come out more when personality similarity is assessed through
behaviours (i.e., Facebook likes, language use) than through self-
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reports (Youyou et al., 2017)
Personality Similarity & Relationships
Youyou et al., 2017

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Overestimating Personality Similarity
• Cross-cultural study in Brazil and the Czech Republic (Štěrbová et al.,
2017):
• Ideal partners: Men prefer self-similar partners in all Big Five
characteristics, but Neuroticism.
• Actual partners: Homogamy in personality in actual couples exists but
is considerably lower.
• Homogamy in personality is most consistent for Extraversion, and to
some degree for Openness and Conscientiousness (in heterosexual
couples)
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In the End It’s More About Us Than You & Me

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 Determinants of Fulfilled Relationships
• Analysis of 11,196 romantic couples across 43
longitudinal dyadic datasets (Joel et al., 2019)
• Machine learning analysis to predict relationship quality
• Most important predictors (account for 45% of current relationship satisfaction)
are about the relationship itself:
• Perceived-partner commitment, appreciation, sexual satisfaction, perceived-
partner satisfaction, and conflict
• Individual differences matter as well (account for 21% of current relationship
satisfaction) but are less important; most important predictors (Big Five not
measured):
• Life satisfaction, affect, depression, attachment style 21
 Due TODAY (11.59pm, Canvas):
Personal Reflection
Think about the most important relationship in your life. Do the personalities
of the people involved contribute to the challenges and the beauty of the
relationship? If yes, how?

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THANK YOU! That’s all for today!
Enjoy the rest of your day and see
you on Wednesday!

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